Wednesday, February 16, 2011

I have an article today on Comment is Free at the Guardian on the strange case of Martin Gaskell, a devout Christian, who was rejected for an astronomy post at the University of Kentucky. The reasons for his rejection appear to have been based on his religion and he won $125,000 in an out-of-court settlement as a result.

Many of new atheist persuasion seem to feel rather let down by the University settling the case. The comments on my piece give an indication of the diversity of opinion on this matter.

17 comments:

As I've noted on the Quodlibeta forum, this guy has changed his online record to remove previous endorsements of blatantly Creationist crap. I backed you up on the Guardian's comments section James but am regretting it now.

You seem to be backing a losing horse here - this guy is far more than just a theist who accepts evolution. He also seems to be a liar.

Oh and yes, evolutionary beliefs were linked to Nazism and the Holocaust. It's one of those inconvenient truths of history.

Another inconvenient fact is that using this as a stick with which to beat the science of evolution is like using the application of physics to build the Hiroshima bomb to attack the science of nuclear physics.

How people chose, rightly or wrongly, to apply science in the real world tells us nothing about the veracity of that science.

Kooky theistic claims about the "Aryan race" being the perfect reflection of the "Creator" and vile anti-Semitic slurs about Jews being "Christ killers" were also "linked to Nazism and the Holocaust". That tells us a lot about the Nazis and nothing at all about the validity of theism or Christianity per se.

It seems the commenters really didn't read your essay, and certainly didn't apply the implications of UK's little contretemps to themselves and their own potential job prospects.

1. Lots of professors, and lots of science ones among them, hold non-mainstream ideas. Some of this goes to academic freedom, and some of it academic eccentricity.

2. Lots of professors, and lots of science ones among them, are extremely outspoken about their weird ideas inside and outside their field. One might mention Noam Chomsky, who hasn't pretended to do linguistics work at MIT for at least thirty years, but still collected his paycheck for same.

3. Lots of people inside and outside academe have extensive Internet paper trails of their weird idea-holding.

4. You never know what will become a fashionable shibboleth next, and hence convict you of holding weird ideas.

5. If UK could hire this way without penalty, nobody could be secure in their rights as a potential hire-ee.

Welcome to Quodlibeta

The Latin word Quodlibeta means "whatever you like" and refers to the special occasions at medieval universities when the students (or clerks as they were known) could test their masters by asking any question they fancied. This blog is primarily concerned with religion, science, history and their interface. But like the medieval clerks, we reserve the right to post on anything we want.

I am a historian of a very middling and amateurish sort. Having taken a Masters in Modern History at the University of St Andrews (2004), I completed a law conversion course at Nottingham Law School and embarked upon what has been an exciting career in legal technology. My chief interests are in Twentieth Century History, Colonial America, Historiography and, most recently, the History of Science. I also write a satirical blog at The Diary of Humphrey Clarke. I hope my contributions to Quodlibeta capture something of the pleasure I get from trawling my dusty collection of second hand history books.

Jim S

I have a Ph.D. in Philosophy and Master's degrees in Philosophy and Theology. I'm a generalist, my areas of expertise being epistemology, logic, philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and science and religion. I did my philosophical studies in Continental Europe, and currently reside in the Pacific Northwest. I also write the Agent Intellect blog. In my mid-20s I decided to refute Christianity to set my conscience at ease. Two subjects I turned to in particular were science and philosophy. I accidentally argued myself into it.